"The ethics of technology" has been a college bull session topic since forever. Unfortunately, it has never accomplished anything and never will.
Should we "allow" technological advances? How do you propose to stop them?
Even if we could, how do we decide which?
How do we predict the effects of unknown technologies? After all, they're "unknown". Duh!
Who are "we" in the preceeding questions, anyway? Any time you say "everybody agrees that...", either you're lying or you have a very restricted definition of "everybody".
Biotech questions seem to be being decided by legal battles between a tiny group of technophobes and international megacorporations who think that they have billions, if not trillions of dollars at stake.
Look at the development of nuclear weapons. The peacenik types hate them, of course, but they ended the war with Japan (killing maybe 200K in Hiroshima and Nagasaki vs the estimated 1M American and 5M Japanese deaths that would have resulted from an invasion of Japan). After WWII, they prevented the Soviet Union from simply rolling over western Europe the same way they rolled over eastern Europe.
OK now, good or bad?
For another example, look at the Internet. Until the development of the Web, it was simply a geek toy. Once some smart guys in Switzerland (significant!) wrote a little program to make FTP easy to use, the whole thing exploded so fast that our hypothetical review body would have been left totally in the dust.
Frankly, the only really effective checks we have on new technology are our liability laws. Hurt people and you get your arse sued off.
Currently, you don't download any music from Napster. That's their whole defense in the lawsuits. They simply act as an information broker, putting people who want to download music in touch with people who are willing to serve it up.
With Bertelsmann in the act, the model has to change. Why should I put the latest Barfing Weasels CD on my server if somebody else gets paid for *my* bandwidth and disk space? Additionally, putting music on a server is legally questionable. If money gets involved for downloading, it becomes even more questionable. (Hmm. Perhaps part of the deal would be "amnesty" for people who put up songs for downloading through an "approved" broker? I expect a rash of lawsuits against people who allow downloads via "nonapproved" (ie, Gnutella) sites....)
If Napster starts charging, the only way it will work is if they have their own servers with music on them. This is a good deal for Bertelsmann (and whoever else gets in on it); it's essentially free money. It's a good deal for users, who get guaranteed quality and availability. (Hope they've got a *big* pipe!) However, it changes the business model so totally that it might as well be a different company (as well as needing a lot of new hardware!)
It can be a roaring success if they treat it right, particularly if the price is reasonable. US$5/month sounds about right. Unfortunately, the big multinationals seem to treat a new business area like a small child treats a kitten -- they love the idea, but then they squeeze it to death.
I have it on good authority that one of the projects that Microsoft had to shelve as a result of the antitrust lawsuit was a major upgrade to the speed of light.
As soon as President Dubya cans the lawsuit, maybe they'll get back on track.
... you've got no right to complain about the Gov't for the next four years. So get your sorry arse to the polls or SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
If you think that you can't make a difference, then get involved in local politics. Trying to get your second cousin elected County Recorder of Deeds will teach you more about politics than you will ever get from TV. Maybe in two years, the Libertarians or the Greens or whoever can put up some candidates for Congress, where they can make a real difference, instead of just gasbags who want to make speeches that nobody listens to. I'm not holding my breath.
BTW, one prediction from the pundit class has already been proven false -- light turnout. When I voted this morning (five minutes after the polls opened) I had to stand in the longest line I've seen in the fourteen years I've lived in this precinct.
.... another interesting question: are liberal arts grads -- who come to programming jobs indirectly -- more highly regarded than straight-to-work comp-sci grads?
Depends. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some managers are credentials fanatics, some don't care. Some jobs require a detailed knowlege of (say) graph theory, some don't.
The big problem with CompSci grads is that many of them have essentially no communications skills and no ability to think critically. Liberal arts types may not have had the greatest programming education, but they don't panic at the thought of writing a white paper.
After a programmer has been out of school for five years or so, the question is irrelevant anyway. By that time, either they've made it, they're not programming any more, or they're stuck in a tiny little niche somewhere.
Where to start? This is the biggest piece of pseudo- management crap I've seen in ages. Outside of a few well-worn chestnuts ("Positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement. People do what you reward them for doing." Duh, and duh.) this is a recipe for disaster.
Rather than do a point-by-point commentary on this piece of fertilizer, I'll just say that, Once Upon A Time, I was part of a proposal effort where our competition followed Greenspun's philosophy. Our group used the classic software- engineering management style. We not only won the bid, we humiliated the other group. The client rated our system superior in every category, including price.
Yes, we had our superprogrammers. Yes, most programmers were average. The main thing that made this project such a success was talented management and adequate funding.
Perhaps Greenspun is hoping his competitors will follow his advice?
Frankly, I got the impression that all of Bush's responses were cut'n'paste from white papers somewhere. Most of them didn't answer the question, although they sounded nice.
Let's see...
War on drugs. Answered the question.
Minority religions. Didn't answer the question. The question mentioned three specific minority religions; the answer mentioned four mainstream religions.
Why tax cuts? Didn't answer the question.
Electoral reform. Didn't answer the question.
Intellectual property. Answered the question.
Encryption. Didn't answer the question.
WTO protests. Answered the question, although (IMHO) the answer was badly phrased. In other words, "No, the protesters do not have legitimate concerns."
Asteroid defenses. Ignored. I'm not surprised; this is one of those "left field" questions that politicians really hate.
National direction. Unanswerable question, IMHO. A question like this is simply an invitation for political rahrah, and that's what we got.
Out of eight answerable questions, we have three answers, four evasions, and one not answered.
Somewhat more worrying is that, of the three questions he did answer,
the answers could be interpereted as "bring out the jackboots".
The questions that he evaded show us an interesting use of what I call
"political bait and switch". If you can't, or don't want, to answer a
question, you answer a similar- sounding question. For example, the answer to question
number two, about minority religions, does not tell us whether he's
changed his views on Wicca. The answer to question three, on tax cuts, did not say *why* a tax cut was more desirable than reducing the deficit; it just said it was better than new spending programs. (This is also an example of another political favorite: Proof by Assertion.)
He'll probably be our next President. Be prepared for, um, rigorous enforcement of IP and drug laws....
--
Your vote will get thrown into the trash with the spoiled ballots and writeins for Mickey Mouse.
Your money is going to continue to go where Gush or Bore sends it. If you try to keep it all to yourself, guys with guns will come and take it away from you. The Second Amendment types will do exactly nothing.
Now, if anybody were really serious about political reform, they'd start a real "third party" and run for Congress. Remember, the "balance of power" in the House is only six seats. If those six seats went to Greens or Libertarians (or a Green -- Libertarian coalition. Brrrr.) THEY WOULD CONTROL CONGRESS.
But since nobody is trying to do this, I assume that nobody wants to. The third-party presidential candidates are simply running around ego tripping and accomplishing exactly nothing. Nader and Browne are buying into the current power structure every bit as much as Bush's hidden handlers.
In fact, in a decade of experience in the IT field, I've yet to have a company request, much less mandate the use of any academic structured design methodology
Interesting. Lately, it seems like every interview I go on, some manager rags on my lack of experience with "UML Design Methodology". This despite the fact that every real UML document that I've seen emphasises that it's not a design methadology. (It is, in fact, the current incarnation of flowcharting. "If you don't understand it, draw a picture. You still won't understand it, but it looks nifty on a slide.")
Just one more example of the Buzzword of the Week, I guess. Do PHBs have little desk calendars with these buzzwords on them, like geeks have Dilbert cartoons?
... just how valuable that data is. It might be worth your while to hire a private investigator specializing in corporate espionage. The police will (at best. Lotsa luck.) find the people who stole the laptop. They have no interest in the data, or who might be willing to pay for it. A PI may be able to track down where the data went.
That said, for future reference:
Encrypt any sensitive data on portable machines. "Sensitive" means having anything to do with company matters. Note -- a BIOS password is useless. A data thief will take the disk out and put it into another machine.
Keep removable media locked up, in something with a real lock. Most desk and file cabinet locks can be opened undetectably in 30 seconds with a bent paper clip. You don't have to put them in a safe -- you just want a thief to take some time and make a lot of noise to get at it.
Any removable media that go outside the office get encrypted. Look at this carefully -- *why* are you taking sensitive floppies/ZIPs/CDRs outside? Do you really need to?
Watch the door. Any door to the outside must be either locked or watched by somebody responsible AT ALL TIMES. Takes two seconds to slip through an unlocked, unwatched door. If you had somebody watching the door, they should be fired. Now. Then you can investigate them for aiding and abetting the thieves. Beware -- the average security guard makes minimum wage. Cheap to bribe.
Look at yor physical security in general. In most places, it's absolutely awful, with employees strolling in and out of back doors, offsite guard stations with poor visibility, poor badge discipline, cheap locks, bad alarms, and other disasters waiting to happen. Often, there's little you can to fix this; most of the problems are caused by bad building architecture.
... it's the control. If the RIAA was really interested in making money, they wouldn't be screwing over
their best customers (college students)
their retailers
their artists (IMHO, artists are now legally employees of the record company, but with no salary or benefits.)
while ignoring industrial- scale pirates in Central America and the Far East.
Looks to me like they think their purpose in life is to yank people's chains, not to make money. As they say in the dotcom biz, this is "not a viable business model".
Or maybe it is, as long as they have enough money and drugs to buy off the Government.
It sickens me how much money is donated and spent on this bullshit that could be better donated to help people out.
It sickens me how *little* money is needed to buy a candidate. The press made a big hoohah about how Bush supporters raised US$70M to get him to run. That's what, one major movie or two Internet startups?
A politician is one of the highest-returning investments a business can make.
Try programming an operating system in anything besides C or a derivative. It's not going to happen unless your willing to handcode assembly language.
Try Oberon. C isn't the only game in town. Usable, commercial OSs have been written in all sorts of strange languages, including LISP, PL/1, and ALGOL68.
I'm willing to put up with C's funky syntax and radical lack of safety when I am working "on the metal" or when I need the absolute maximum speed. Any other time, it's a pain in the arse.
Also, the number of applications that really need the speed is a *lot* smaller than most people think. I've seen major programming efforts for things like Web applications burn a vast amount of programmer time doing CGI scripts in C/C++ instead of Perl because "it has to be fast". Difference to the user turns out to be unmeasurable, due to Net and database delays.
A bit of history. Once Upon A Time, somebody invented a technology called "digital audio tape". RIAA refused to allow it to be used unless it used some form of "copy protection". What they came up with was to filter out a sharp "notch" of audio frequencies. Audio equipment would detect the lack of certain frequencies in the sound output and behave appropriately -- usually, it would refuse to record it.
Now, here's the point. The RIAA's "golden ears" listeners supposedly couldn't tell the difference between the original and "notched" version. When other people got ahold of it, the differences were glaringly obvious (to the "golden ears") on certain types of program material.
The conclusion was obvious. Either the RIAA's "golden ears" said exactly what the RIAA told them to say, or the program material that they tested with was carefully selected to give the results that they wanted.
Note, BTW, what happened to DAT.
Personally, the fact that two out of the three "golden ears" are from the RIAA kill it for me. They need to look up the definition of the word "independant".
They should have forgone the serial number part...
Uhh, no. Near as I can tell, their revenue model involves keeping track of the items scanned by each doodad. Then they can correlate this with the registration data to match serial number to a "real" person. Then they sell the list of items scanned for marketing.
This kind of marketing data is *very* valuable nowdays.
Personally, I think that they should stick with charging companies to be listed in their database. After all, a naked barcode, by itself, is pretty useless.
That, and hiring people with some vestige of a clue.
This is a very good question. The main applications that I see wold be designed ot get around the Draconian intellectial property laws that Corporate America is buying for itself.
* Anonymous distribution of "embarassing" materials. Model here is the "Church" of Scientology's (tm) "copyright trade secret" "scriptures". They have established a precident that, if somebody releases private material showing evidence of a crime, the IP issue of releasing private material takes precident over any crimes that that material might provide evidence for.
* Code that enables small-scale, not- for- profit sharing of things like recordings and movies. Right now, I would *not* want my name associated with an MP3-sharing program.
* Code that enables use of IP things in ways that the "owners" don't approve of. An example would be bypassing the "fast forward cutout" on some DVDs. Yes, fast forwarding through commercials is a "crime" now.
* The way that things are going, "reverse engineering" of any kind will soon be illegal. See the discussions on the "CueCat" and the hoohah about figuring out what CyberSitter et al actually filter out.
Anyway, the way the laws are currently written, any time you do something that a big company doesn't like, they can simply sue you into oblivion. Anonymous software distribution gives you a way of getting your stuff out there without painting a target on yourself.
It's *really* *easy* to come up with really bad protocols for this sort of thing. I didn't see anything on their site except "we use 128-bit encryption" and "our server is behind a firewall". Neither of these give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
I suspect that there was Government pressure here. After all, the vast majority of folks out there are drug dealing, embassy bombing, money laundering, MP3 downloading child pornographers who have to be watched every minute.
Lay you odds that the PayPal computers have a complete, detailed record of who sent what to who, accessible by a single phone call by an "authorized law enforcement agent".
Hmm. A long time ago, when fuel cells were first getting popular (late 60s, early 70s), I there seemed to be a lot of research on fuel cells that would use something besides pure H2 as fuel. I remember things like methanol, ethanol, and coal(!).
So how come all the proposals I've seen recently use a "reformer"? Efficiency? Lack of research on alternatives? H2 bigotry? Oil company sabotage? ((:-)*0.5 on that last....)
BTW, the skin of the Hindenburg was "doped" with Thermite (iron oxide and powdered aluminum), not kerosene.
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"The ethics of technology" has been a college bull session topic since forever. Unfortunately, it has never accomplished anything and never will.
...", either you're lying or you have a very restricted definition of "everybody".
Should we "allow" technological advances? How do you propose to stop them?
Even if we could, how do we decide which?
How do we predict the effects of unknown technologies? After all, they're "unknown". Duh!
Who are "we" in the preceeding questions, anyway? Any time you say "everybody agrees that
Biotech questions seem to be being decided by legal battles between a tiny group of technophobes and international megacorporations who think that they have billions, if not trillions of dollars at stake.
Look at the development of nuclear weapons. The peacenik types hate them, of course, but they ended the war with Japan (killing maybe 200K in Hiroshima and Nagasaki vs the estimated 1M American and 5M Japanese deaths that would have resulted from an invasion of Japan). After WWII, they prevented the Soviet Union from simply rolling over western Europe the same way they rolled over eastern Europe.
OK now, good or bad?
For another example, look at the Internet. Until the development of the Web, it was simply a geek toy. Once some smart guys in Switzerland (significant!) wrote a little program to make FTP easy to use, the whole thing exploded so fast that our hypothetical review body would have been left totally in the dust.
Frankly, the only really effective checks we have on new technology are our liability laws. Hurt people and you get your arse sued off.
--
Currently, you don't download any music from Napster. That's their whole defense in the lawsuits. They simply act as an information broker, putting people who want to download music in touch with people who are willing to serve it up.
With Bertelsmann in the act, the model has to change. Why should I put the latest Barfing Weasels CD on my server if somebody else gets paid for *my* bandwidth and disk space? Additionally, putting music on a server is legally questionable. If money gets involved for downloading, it becomes even more questionable. (Hmm. Perhaps part of the deal would be "amnesty" for people who put up songs for downloading through an "approved" broker? I expect a rash of lawsuits against people who allow downloads via "nonapproved" (ie, Gnutella) sites....)
If Napster starts charging, the only way it will work is if they have their own servers with music on them. This is a good deal for Bertelsmann (and whoever else gets in on it); it's essentially free money. It's a good deal for users, who get guaranteed quality and availability. (Hope they've got a *big* pipe!) However, it changes the business model so totally that it might as well be a different company (as well as needing a lot of new hardware!)
It can be a roaring success if they treat it right, particularly if the price is reasonable. US$5/month sounds about right. Unfortunately, the big multinationals seem to treat a new business area like a small child treats a kitten -- they love the idea, but then they squeeze it to death.
--
This is no sillier than tha current system.
--
Please report back tomorrow and tell us how many of those 1420+ candidates won. Please note -- a "moral victory" is another name for a loss.
Gasbags.
--
So what can we get from upstream packets?
Looks to me like they need to rethink their encryption policy.
Also, we've been assuming that "56 bit encryption" means "DES". Doesn't have to; could be 56 bit ROT-13 ....
--
I have it on good authority that one of the projects that Microsoft had to shelve as a result of the antitrust lawsuit was a major upgrade to the speed of light.
As soon as President Dubya cans the lawsuit, maybe they'll get back on track.
--
... you've got no right to complain about the Gov't for the next four years. So get your sorry arse to the polls or SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
If you think that you can't make a difference, then get involved in local politics. Trying to get your second cousin elected County Recorder of Deeds will teach you more about politics than you will ever get from TV. Maybe in two years, the Libertarians or the Greens or whoever can put up some candidates for Congress, where they can make a real difference, instead of just gasbags who want to make speeches that nobody listens to. I'm not holding my breath.
BTW, one prediction from the pundit class has already been proven false -- light turnout. When I voted this morning (five minutes after the polls opened) I had to stand in the longest line I've seen in the fourteen years I've lived in this precinct.
--
Depends. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some managers are credentials fanatics, some don't care. Some jobs require a detailed knowlege of (say) graph theory, some don't.
The big problem with CompSci grads is that many of them have essentially no communications skills and no ability to think critically. Liberal arts types may not have had the greatest programming education, but they don't panic at the thought of writing a white paper.
After a programmer has been out of school for five years or so, the question is irrelevant anyway. By that time, either they've made it, they're not programming any more, or they're stuck in a tiny little niche somewhere.
--
Where to start? This is the biggest piece of pseudo- management crap I've seen in ages. Outside of a few well-worn chestnuts ("Positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement. People do what you reward them for doing." Duh, and duh.) this is a recipe for disaster.
Rather than do a point-by-point commentary on this piece of fertilizer, I'll just say that, Once Upon A Time, I was part of a proposal effort where our competition followed Greenspun's philosophy. Our group used the classic software- engineering management style. We not only won the bid, we humiliated the other group. The client rated our system superior in every category, including price.
Yes, we had our superprogrammers. Yes, most programmers were average. The main thing that made this project such a success was talented management and adequate funding.
Perhaps Greenspun is hoping his competitors will follow his advice?
--
Frankly, I got the impression that all of Bush's responses were cut'n'paste from white papers somewhere. Most of them didn't answer the question, although they sounded nice.
Let's see ...
Out of eight answerable questions, we have three answers, four evasions, and one not answered.
Somewhat more worrying is that, of the three questions he did answer, the answers could be interpereted as "bring out the jackboots".
The questions that he evaded show us an interesting use of what I call "political bait and switch". If you can't, or don't want, to answer a question, you answer a similar- sounding question. For example, the answer to question number two, about minority religions, does not tell us whether he's changed his views on Wicca. The answer to question three, on tax cuts, did not say *why* a tax cut was more desirable than reducing the deficit; it just said it was better than new spending programs. (This is also an example of another political favorite: Proof by Assertion.)
He'll probably be our next President. Be prepared for, um, rigorous enforcement of IP and drug laws ....
--
And this accomplishes what?
Your vote will get thrown into the trash with the spoiled ballots and writeins for Mickey Mouse.
Your money is going to continue to go where Gush or Bore sends it. If you try to keep it all to yourself, guys with guns will come and take it away from you. The Second Amendment types will do exactly nothing.
Now, if anybody were really serious about political reform, they'd start a real "third party" and run for Congress. Remember, the "balance of power" in the House is only six seats. If those six seats went to Greens or Libertarians (or a Green -- Libertarian coalition. Brrrr.) THEY WOULD CONTROL CONGRESS.
But since nobody is trying to do this, I assume that nobody wants to. The third-party presidential candidates are simply running around ego tripping and accomplishing exactly nothing. Nader and Browne are buying into the current power structure every bit as much as Bush's hidden handlers.
--
Who cares?
The important thing is the *record company* gets paid. They're the ones who own the material.
After all, the artists are just the paid employees of the record companies. They've already been paid.
Think I'm kidding? Look up the infamous IRS "twenty questions" and apply them to conditions that musicians work under.
--
Whether you like it or not, this great nation was founded upon Christian Beliefs and any attempt to deny that it completely futile.
... you shall NEVER succeed in taking politics out of the Church!
....
Those "Christian Beliefs" being religious intolerance, slavery, and genocide. Time to put them away.
ROFL! "Church politics" is not usually seen as a Good Thing
--
In fact, in a decade of experience in the IT field, I've yet to have a company request, much less mandate the use of any academic structured design methodology
Interesting. Lately, it seems like every interview I go on, some manager rags on my lack of experience with "UML Design Methodology". This despite the fact that every real UML document that I've seen emphasises that it's not a design methadology. (It is, in fact, the current incarnation of flowcharting. "If you don't understand it, draw a picture. You still won't understand it, but it looks nifty on a slide.")
Just one more example of the Buzzword of the Week, I guess. Do PHBs have little desk calendars with these buzzwords on them, like geeks have Dilbert cartoons?
--
"The winner would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt."
-- Gandalf the Gray
--
That said, for future reference:
In any case, good luck. You'll need it.
--
... it's the control. If the RIAA was really interested in making money, they wouldn't be screwing over
while ignoring industrial- scale pirates in Central America and the Far East.
Looks to me like they think their purpose in life is to yank people's chains, not to make money. As they say in the dotcom biz, this is "not a viable business model".
Or maybe it is, as long as they have enough money and drugs to buy off the Government.It sickens me how much money is donated and spent on this bullshit that could be better donated to help people out.
It sickens me how *little* money is needed to buy a candidate. The press made a big hoohah about how Bush supporters raised US$70M to get him to run. That's what, one major movie or two Internet startups?
A politician is one of the highest-returning investments a business can make.
Try programming an operating system in anything besides C or a derivative. It's not going to happen unless your willing to handcode assembly language.
Try Oberon. C isn't the only game in town. Usable, commercial OSs have been written in all sorts of strange languages, including LISP, PL/1, and ALGOL68.
I'm willing to put up with C's funky syntax and radical lack of safety when I am working "on the metal" or when I need the absolute maximum speed. Any other time, it's a pain in the arse.
Also, the number of applications that really need the speed is a *lot* smaller than most people think. I've seen major programming efforts for things like Web applications burn a vast amount of programmer time doing CGI scripts in C/C++ instead of Perl because "it has to be fast". Difference to the user turns out to be unmeasurable, due to Net and database delays.
A bit of history. Once Upon A Time, somebody invented a technology called "digital audio tape". RIAA refused to allow it to be used unless it used some form of "copy protection". What they came up with was to filter out a sharp "notch" of audio frequencies. Audio equipment would detect the lack of certain frequencies in the sound output and behave appropriately -- usually, it would refuse to record it.
Now, here's the point. The RIAA's "golden ears" listeners supposedly couldn't tell the difference between the original and "notched" version. When other people got ahold of it, the differences were glaringly obvious (to the "golden ears") on certain types of program material.
The conclusion was obvious. Either the RIAA's "golden ears" said exactly what the RIAA told them to say, or the program material that they tested with was carefully selected to give the results that they wanted.
Note, BTW, what happened to DAT.
Personally, the fact that two out of the three "golden ears" are from the RIAA kill it for me. They need to look up the definition of the word "independant".
They should have forgone the serial number part ...
Uhh, no. Near as I can tell, their revenue model involves keeping track of the items scanned by each doodad. Then they can correlate this with the registration data to match serial number to a "real" person. Then they sell the list of items scanned for marketing.
This kind of marketing data is *very* valuable nowdays.
Personally, I think that they should stick with charging companies to be listed in their database. After all, a naked barcode, by itself, is pretty useless.
That, and hiring people with some vestige of a clue.
This is a very good question. The main applications that I see wold be designed ot get around the Draconian intellectial property laws that Corporate America is buying for itself.
* Anonymous distribution of "embarassing" materials. Model here is the "Church" of Scientology's (tm) "copyright trade secret" "scriptures". They have established a precident that, if somebody releases private material showing evidence of a crime, the IP issue of releasing private material takes precident over any crimes that that material might provide evidence for.
* Code that enables small-scale, not- for- profit sharing of things like recordings and movies. Right now, I would *not* want my name associated with an MP3-sharing program.
* Code that enables use of IP things in ways that the "owners" don't approve of. An example would be bypassing the "fast forward cutout" on some DVDs. Yes, fast forwarding through commercials is a "crime" now.
* The way that things are going, "reverse engineering" of any kind will soon be illegal. See the discussions on the "CueCat" and the hoohah about figuring out what CyberSitter et al actually filter out.
Anyway, the way the laws are currently written, any time you do something that a big company doesn't like, they can simply sue you into oblivion. Anonymous software distribution gives you a way of getting your stuff out there without painting a target on yourself.
It's *really* *easy* to come up with really bad protocols for this sort of thing. I didn't see anything on their site except "we use 128-bit encryption" and "our server is behind a firewall". Neither of these give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
David Chaum's "Digicash" has all of the nifty features that you'd want with digital cash/micropayments/whatever you want to call it -- security, anonymity, non-duplicatibility, non-repudiation, and so forth. Unfortunately, Digicash went bankrupt. Not surprising, given that the only US agent charged 5% to put money into an account and %5 to take money out.
I suspect that there was Government pressure here. After all, the vast majority of folks out there are drug dealing, embassy bombing, money laundering, MP3 downloading child pornographers who have to be watched every minute.
Lay you odds that the PayPal computers have a complete, detailed record of who sent what to who, accessible by a single phone call by an "authorized law enforcement agent".
Hmmm. Maybe their profit model isn't *completely* based on the float ....
Hmm. A long time ago, when fuel cells were first getting popular (late 60s, early 70s), I there seemed to be a lot of research on fuel cells that would use something besides pure H2 as fuel. I remember things like methanol, ethanol, and coal(!).
So how come all the proposals I've seen recently use a "reformer"? Efficiency? Lack of research on alternatives? H2 bigotry? Oil company sabotage? ((:-)*0.5 on that last....)
BTW, the skin of the Hindenburg was "doped" with Thermite (iron oxide and powdered aluminum), not kerosene.